The Rivals
by Gilpin
Summary: Night came... The one after Dumbledore died and Snape had ripped the heart and soul out of the Order of the Phoenix with just two short words. They spent it lying side by side on Tonks' sagging single bed in her room at the Hog's Head Inn.


**Disclaimer: I'm definitely not J K Rowling and these are her characters that I've borrowed for this story.**

**Dedication: To Godricgal, to wish her luck today.**

**Author's Note: Originally written for the January RT Challenge, with the prompts 'blue' and an 'empty toilet roll holder' in mind. I hesitate to say it's yet another post hospital wing fic, but Dumbledore would no doubt be tickled pink to think there was another one in the world. And no one even utters the words: "Too old, etc..." **

**The Rivals**

Night came…

The one after Dumbledore died, and Snape had ripped the heart and soul out of the Order of the Phoenix with just two short words. They spent it lying side by side on Tonks' sagging single bed in her room at the Hog's Head Inn.

Remus tried to talk, did until his voice stumbled over the words with exhaustion; searching for a way to explain what had once seemed to be the right thing, indeed the only thing to do, but which now, in the revealing flare of the solitary candle, and the glaring light of all that had happened, seemed like the blindness of a man who'd long failed to see what was transparently obvious to all. He couldn't even remember some of his long held arguments and cared about them even less. They were closer together physically than they'd been for months and his shoulder and hip touched hers quite naturally, while the rise and fall of her breast was perfectly in time with his own breathing.

When he paused to try and gather the few wits and resources he had left, there was only silence. It occurred to him that she was waiting for him to say something worth responding to and was just politely hearing him out until then.

"I want us to be together," he said, at last resorting to simple, basic facts and feeling his heart thud as she stirred on the frayed grey blanket next to him, "but now I have even less right to ask anything of you."

There was no audible sigh but he could hear it all the same.

"Aren't we past all that yet?" She looked at him with a thin, drawn face from which every vestige of colour had been taken, yet those dark eyes met his as unflinchingly as they always did, and it was still him who looked away from them. "I thought you'd got it into your thick head that you're not the only one doing the asking here?"

He heard the spirit in her tired voice and he marvelled at it. If she was still fighting then so must he. There was far too much they couldn't speak of yet – Dumbledore, what was going to happen to the Order, the repercussions of what Harry had said – but he could and must find a way to give her back what he'd taken.

"It would have been a lot easier, you know, if there'd just been another woman," she said, musingly, looking at her hands resting on her lap. "I could have hexed her into oblivion, and strung you up by the balls, and then marched off into the sunset with my head held high. It's much harder to fight the conscience of a good man." Her voice faltered slightly on the last words. "Almost impossible, really."

"You can't ever think that …" He swallowed, trying to take in all the vast and appalling implications of her words. "There's only you, Tonks. You know that. This was never a, a … _competition_ between what I felt for you and what I felt I had to do. If only it had been that simple, you'd have won every time."

She nodded, but he saw how her hand went self-consciously to her brown hair, tucking it behind her ear. Merlin, what he'd done to her in the name of loyalty and love.

There were no words invented that could put this right, but it was all that he had to offer.

He moved a little closer to her. "I never wanted this, never wanted to hurt you, but—"

"It's all right. I understand why you couldn't put me first. Or put us first. I don't care about it now."

He put his face tentatively against her hair, shutting his eyes to contain his relief when she at once leant back against him. "I think I'd prefer you to care."

She gave a slight laugh, her head turning into the crook of his neck like so many times before, her breath and lips brushing the soft part where it met the shoulder. His arm automatically slipped round her as he listened to her muffled voice. "You were listening when I called you all those names, all those times, weren't you? You want me to come up with some worse ones to make you feel better?"

He thought perhaps he did. Her breathing and his had quickened slightly as he let his hand stroke down her side, lingering on the warm exposed skin between waist and hip. Although unable to feel any tautness in her, or her words, he knew it was there. Undefeated by either of them. He knew he could take her if he wanted, they were both so desperate for the reassurance and comfort, and there would be no resistance, but it was there and while it existed any reconciliation would be ashes.

They knew each other too well. They always had, right from the start.

He kissed her abruptly on her forehead and straightened up. _I understand why you couldn't put me first, she'd said. Or put us first_. He was glad someone did because, for the life of him, he couldn't now. "Perhaps I should go."

"You want to stay, don't you?"

"Don't I always?" It started off as a bitter response but, as he said it, he felt the glimmer of a smile tug at his lips. They'd always been so quick to laughter, after all, and it seemed she remembered that, too, when after a brief moment's hesitation, she smiled a little uncertainly in return.

"Then stay, you idiot. I'm not kicking you out unless you really annoy me." There was a richness in her tone which he had not consciously realised till now had been missing for so long. "And you always were the warmest of pillows."

He wrapped his arm and his body round hers, putting his cheek against the flat brown hair, trying not to remember how it felt when pink and wild. His eyes were shut against the memory of how she used to move when he touched her, and his ears were firmly closed to the recollection of the sounds she used to make when they made love.

"This bed's lop-sided," he said, after a while, when he was sure she wasn't sleeping either.

"You'll have to see Aberforth and make an official complaint. I think he gives the honeymoon suite with the four poster to the goats."

"It also seems a bit difficult to actually get in the bathroom. Or stand upright in it. Not that I'm not grateful to have one again, you understand."

"You won't be when the loo roll runs out. One a week, that's the rule, and I'm sure the cheapskate uses rejected parchment. It's very hard on those delicate areas."

Her voice was sleepy but still held a note of humour and irony that was unmistakably hers. They were talking such trivia on one of the most terrible nights he'd ever known, and he knew they were doing so because it was the only way to cope with the grief. Something similar had happened to him after James and Lily died, then again after Sirius which she'd been through as well. It was as though part of the mind shut down to numb the pain.

He held her tighter to let her know he understood and she hugged his arm to her chest, threading her fingers through his, so that their hands lay clasped together as one on the blanket.

Looking at them in the flickering candlelight, he finally understood why he'd been so afraid of losing a woman like this, and whispered his greatest fear of all aloud to her.

"Tonks … I don't know how to make this right for you. For us."

She stirred in his arms. One dark eye regarded him thoughtfully. With something that looked part sorrow, part amusement.

"You'll find a way, Remus. You're a very clever man. It was all that thinking that got us into this mess in the first place so it seems only right it gets us out of it. And I'll meet you half way if you do."

----------------------------

Dusk came…

On the evening before Dumbledore's funeral and he led her far away from Hogsmeade, towards the small hill opposite the town. There was a large leather bag slung over his shoulder, and once or twice, when rocks blocked their path upwards, he gave her his hand and the touch of his skin was both familiar and reassuring. The sky, glimpsed between tall, towering trees, was rapidly darkening, and he led her quickly through them, seeming to want to reach their destination before the sun disappeared.

"Look." He pointed through a gap in the trees and she saw Hogwarts high in the distance above them, small wavering points of light coming from within.

They stood and watched in silence for a while, and she wondered where he was taking them because there was still such a sense of unreality and disbelief that Dumbledore was really gone that it was easier to think about this instead. She'd only briefly seen him during the last few days, there being so many urgent things to discuss and do for both of them but, by unspoken agreement, they'd spent each night in her bed, not wanting to sleep alone despite the cramped, hot quarters.

It was odd how you could be so close to someone and be so divided at the same time. Not that she'd ever questioned the strength of her feeling for him, nor seriously doubted his in return, but in those long tormenting moments when she lay awake and listened to him breathing next to her, she knew they'd both lost something which might well prove irreplaceable.

Trust? Confidence? Neither of those seemed to quite fit what she felt and didn't feel.

"I've never been here before," she said to break the silence, as she realised he'd stopped looking at the school and was watching her. "Flown over it a fair few times, of course, but you seem to know it well?"

"There weren't many places the four of us didn't explore during our years here." He gave her that quick reserved smile, his real one hidden somewhere behind it, and moved off, checking almost anxiously over his shoulder to see she was following. "We're nearly there. It's only really noteworthy for the view, anyway."

_We've come out here to admire the scenery?_ She nearly said it, as a half-hearted joke, but didn't because this was Remus and thought and purpose would have been put into this. No Apparating, for a start, because walking there was clearly important.

They reached a flat grassy summit and it appeared that this was what he'd been aiming for. She dropped the small bag she'd been carrying and looked around. There was the remnants of a hut made with rocks and branches, which looked as though it had had a roof once, and she wondered if he and the others had been responsible for building it long ago. They were encircled by trees, except for a break the width of a dozen or so wide, like a natural screen, which gave a perfect view of the sky. Hogwarts was now to the far right of them, the lights still just visible through the gloom.

He'd taken out his wand and lit a fire though the evening was warm and still, and then turned to the bag, bringing out food and wine. And a blue checked blanket which he laid on the ground – she wondered if the plan was to make love to her up here and was unsure how she felt about that – before asking her in a manner that somehow encompassed politeness, charm and a glimpse of plaintive hope all in one go, if she'd mind sitting down in this open-air restaurant and dining with him.

She inclined her head graciously and sat down cross-legged in front of him, holding back a smile when he produced a candle followed by a jam jar for it to stand in.

"When you asked if I'd come for an evening stroll, I had no idea you had such grand plans. You're really trying to impress me with this, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes." He poured her a glass of wine. It was red, which was her favourite and his. "I thought you'd see how I've buttered the bread, and then sandwiched it and the cheese together into these interestingly shaped slices, and find it all completely irresistible."

"Depends if you've remem—" She broke off as he brought some chocolate biscuits out and waved them at her. "Okay, now you've gained a few bonus points, though I'm taking a couple off for looking like a smug git. But can you build on a promising beginning?"

"Probably not." He frowned. "I seem to have had something heavy on the tomatoes. I hope you like them squashed?"

She started to laugh and caught herself sharply. The world had turned upside down and she was finding things funny now? But even as the guilt and sorrow bit at her, she saw the strain and lines on Remus' face, and knew he was wearing as much of a mask as she was.

"Aberforth asked if there was any chance of me doubling up in the room," she said, taking a bite of the sandwich and thinking to talk about something else to help them both. "The cheeky sod pointed out that I was already doubling up, as it were, and so many people were desperate for somewhere to sleep that—"

She stopped abruptly and cursed herself again as the reason for so many strangers in town hit home as well. Was there no subject that was safe?

"It's all right, you know." Remus was still looking at her. In the last day or so, she'd noticed he seemed to be meeting her eyes again.

"Is it?"

"Yes. And I hope you told him that unless they actually wanted to sleep under our bed, and share a bathroom that you couldn't fit, let alone swing a goat in, then we weren't up for sharing." He smiled quickly at her before busying himself with the wine again, and it was almost like old times when they understood what the other meant without the need of words, and if one of them was in trouble then the other one would bail them out.

Almost.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence as the dark closed in around them and the fire and the candle grew ever brighter. It was a peaceful silence but not a restful one, and she knew there was something he was waiting for.

She'd never been any good at waiting, not when she knew something was going to happen eventually, and she didn't see why it shouldn't happen a lot sooner. It was why she'd asked him to sleep with her before he asked her (although he said afterwards that he'd been silently asking her since the very first date and it wasn't his fault she was hard of hearing), told him she loved him before he told her (although that was quibbling over a five second gap when his face and body were saying more than her words could, anyway), and called him a coward when he left her and seemingly gave up on them at the same time. Which was so much easier than saying how absolutely terrified she was for him.

She was older and wiser now, there was still a raw, hurt area inside that she didn't know what to do with, but she also knew her own nature and his, and because she knew them she made her voice casual. "Tell me why we're here."

"You don't want an after dinner liqueur and mints?"

"No, thank you." She smiled, this time to reassure him.

"Just as well." He stared blankly, almost unseeingly, over her shoulder for a minute, and then said softly: "When we first met, I thought you didn't notice me. I used to lurk round corners in Grimmauld waiting to talk to you, and would frequently be found checking for damp if Sirius or Kreacher suddenly appeared instead."

She laughed. "I was too busy worrying you'd never notice me."

"I used to watch the Order members arrive for a meeting and wait until I saw you with them."

"I used to look for you as soon as I came through the door." She grinned. "Or fell through it. Then I'd look from the floor and hope you were coming to my rescue. Sometimes I'd lay there for ages, looking at my watch impatiently, which also took a bit of explaining if someone else turned up."

He smiled, nodding rather absently. "That's why I've brought you here." He nodded again, this time behind her.

She stared at him for a moment, not understanding, and then turned to look over her shoulder at the dark night which was no longer empty. A crescent moon of brilliant clarity was rising above them, its light silvering the tops of the trees, turning the dark green foliage to shadows of midnight blue. Stars formed familiar patterns around it, and she took a moment to find the sword of Orion's Belt and Sirius, burning brightest of them all, as always, before turning back to look at him and waiting.

"I kept thinking about what you said, Tonks. That I didn't put you or us first." He laced his long fingers together round his knees and continued to stare over her shoulder as he spoke. "And I kept thinking, _but that's what I was doing, wasn't it? Why doesn't she see that?_ But then I realised that's not what I was doing at all."

"Remus." She wasn't sure what she wanted to say and he carried on as if she hadn't spoken.

"I used to think that all I wanted in life were two or three things and if I had them I'd be content. That if I did have them the rest that life could offer didn't matter, and if I didn't have them then everything else was useless. And then I got the greatest gift that life could give and gave it up because I thought I had to."

She stared at him and, slowly, very slowly, he lowered his eyes to hers and smiled at her. The moon had cast shadows on his cheekbones and mouth, turning his blue eyes silver as they held hers.

"All out of fear," he said quietly. "Because of what I did put first. What I've always put first. I couldn't bear to take a chance and see you suffer for it. But you suffered anyway."

She shuffled a little away from the warmth of the fire, blaming that for the sudden rise of heat in her face, and to give herself time to form a reply. But so much time had been wasted already by them both.

"I'd rather suffer the consequences of taking a chance." She found her voice from somewhere, speaking from her heart and instinct and hearing the huskiness as she formed the words. "At least we wouldn't always wonder what would have happened if we had."

He was very still, watching her intently. "We can't ever regain what we lost, Tonks. What I lost for us."

"I said and did things I'm not proud of as well." She watched the fire, finding it easier to look at that as she wrestled with herself. The easy capitulation beckoned so enticingly, and she wanted it so badly, yet, perversely, now it was being offered to her, it wasn't quite enough to ease all the hurt of the year.

For a moment it was a difficult choice, but then there was no choice at all. There never had been for her, otherwise why had she kept on fighting him?

"Anyway you'll have plenty of time to apologise because I'm going to go on about this for the next eighty or so years." Her voice cracked but she forced it on. "You're going to discover what the word grovel really means."

He smiled at her, his face alive with relief and so much more that she had to swallow at the sudden movements of warmth in her heart where she had not expected to have feeling again. "Nymphadora Tonks … how could you _ever_ think you had to worry about a rival?"

"Well, I was up against a stupid git like you," she muttered, forcing the emotion back, and then smiled with him. "So we're going to spend the night sticking two fingers up at the rival to my territory, are we?"

"Something like that." He added, self-consciously, "I never watch the moon, you see. But I thought that with you by my side there was no reason on earth why I shouldn't. That's if you'll stay here with me?"

"I'd be delighted, Mr Lupin. There's just one snag, though…"

If the look of trepidation that immediately furrowed his brow hadn't been so touching, it would have been funny. And immensely flattering. She could do with a lot more of that for a long time to come.

She cleared her throat. "Seeing as we've moaned so much about Aberforth's facilities, I assume you've come prepared for the whole night?" She grinned at his puzzled face and reached inside her bag, watching his eyebrows shoot towards his hairline as she pulled out a flowery pink loo roll.

"Ah." He looked rather downcast and she thought she wouldn't have to tease him too much as it was too soon for them to be back on that footing. "You thought you might be spending the night somewhere then, did you?"

"I had an inkling that I'd have to be prepared for all eventualities with you."

"I see." He held her gaze for a moment, reached inside his bag and twirled a matching roll round on his finger, except that his looked a more manly blue. "It's fortunate I like to _cover_ all eventualities with you."

"Ah." Tonks bit the inside of her cheeks to stop herself laughing. From nowhere came a momentary vision of a very old, thin wizard, with a long silver beard and hair, chuckling along with her, and then it was gone.

"Mine's 3-ply," she said.

"Ultra soft."

"Luxury double-quilted."

"Is this what you call meeting me half way?" She could swear the old mischievous glint was back in his eye.

"No." She reached across and put her hand on his arm. "This is."

_"Tonks."_ He put his hands to her hair, pressing it back from either cheek, and kissed her gently. The moon shone down on them both gilding them silver-blue, and every one of the acute sensations that his touch and taste had once invoked were still there. She'd always marvelled how it was possible to feel so much when she was with him. Perhaps it was even more keenly felt, now she knew what it was like to lose it.

He stroked her hair back again. "There's still so much we've got to sort and face."

"I know." She did know, too, that some of the unbearable hurt and anger deep inside had lifted, which meant it had for him as well, and that the rest could follow in time. For now she was under the gaze of her fiercest and cruellest rival, who wasn't used to losing, and she felt like some wild creature who wanted to lay with him in the moon's glow on a hill top because anything was possible for them when they were together.

She looked at him. "But it's a start, isn't it?

His eyes were searching her face as though he was memorising a picture of this moment that would last forever, and he shook his head in wonderment and held her to him as if he would never let go of her again.

"Stay with me," he said. "Always."

As he started to kiss her she glimpsed his arm where her nails must have dug involuntarily into him. Half-moon crescents were clearly visible in his skin.

Her rival must really be running scared now.

-----------------------

Morning came…

On the day of Dumbledore's funeral and there was a grey light, a wolf-light, to the east. Behind it, shining through the trees, were bars of pink and gold to herald the awakening sun. The lightest of breezes stirred the ashes of the fire in front of him. His clothes and hers lay to the side of it.

She was sat up; her half of the blanket wrapped loosely round her lower body, resting her elbows on her knees as she gazed at the sky. He watched her for a moment, thinking she was the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.

As though she felt him stir, she turned and looked down at him. A smile was on her lips.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said, nodding towards the light. "The coming dawn. I think those colours signify hope and love and endurance for each day. Giving us the strength to go on."

He put his arms round her and kissed the soft white shoulder. Then he rested his head against hers and watched with her, thinking that she was all those things to him and more.

"Yes," she said. "I think he'd like to see that colour today, don't you?"

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